


Man in the Water

by morrezela



Series: Man in the Water [1]
Category: Supernatural RPF
Genre: Angst, M/M, Pining, Stalking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-08
Updated: 2013-03-08
Packaged: 2017-12-04 15:03:02
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 17,443
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/712062
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/morrezela/pseuds/morrezela
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>From the spnkink_meme Prompt: “Jared has taken to waking up really early in the morning so that he can get a prime spot - every morning he spies on Jensen who swims/baths in the lake in forest. Jared thinks that Jensen is beautiful, but he, Jared, is too shy to talk to him. Jared has taken to leaving little tokens for Jensen to find - a carving, flowers, a fluffy towel - anything he can think of to get Jensen to smile.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	Man in the Water

**Author's Note:**

> Warnings: Features selfconfidenceissues!Jared and is borderline voyeuristic with potential stalker triggers, but ultimately just a pathetic ball of piningforJensen!mush. This isn’t non-con or dub-con.
> 
> All mistakes that you find are my own.

When Jared first laid eyes on the man in the water, he thought the guy was a nymph. It’s sad, but true. He’d been reading a lot. He’d had a cold and been on drugs. The novels, lack of proper sleep, and over the counter medication had conspired against him, okay?

In any case, Jared had been running through the woods with his dogs, and had stumbled upon a scenic overlook of the lake. His kids hadn’t been suffering from the residual wheezing that their owner had been, so he’d sat down on a dry, moss covered boulder and thrown sticks for them to chase after and bring back, hoping to wear them out while he caught his breath.

He’d regained it only to lose it moments later when movement in the water attracted his eye.

The vantage point that he’d had from his rock wasn’t the best. Leaves and stray branches blocked his view, and he’d had to physically hold back a branch to actually see what was disturbing the lake. The branch had snapped back in his face moments later when his hands failed to work properly because his brain shorted out at the sight of the most perfect, masculine shoulders he’d ever seen slicing through the water with an effortless breaststroke.

Convincing himself that it was a hallucination, Jared carefully pulled the branches apart again, this time being as quiet as possible lest too much rustling attract the apparition’s attention. But once the small lake, a pond really, was open to his view again, the man was still swimming, and Jared had confirmation of not only the continued perfectness of his shoulders, but of the exquisiteness of the dip of his lower back, and… Holy Mother of God! The man’s ass was the most perfect, pale flesh that he’d ever set eyes on.

So, really, faced with the flawless male specimen taking a dip in a pond in the middle of a forest, Jared feels he was completely justified in his first assumption that the man was an unearthly creature. It made as much sense as anything else.

Well, maybe not as much sense as say just a really hot guy skinny dipping in a lake because he thought he was alone, and Jared just happening to stumble upon him while taking his dogs out for an abnormally early walk, but Jared likes to cut himself slack on occasion.

In any case, he was enraptured with the sight before him. He held as still as possible to keep the nymph from spotting him. As the unearthly creature swam around the full perimeter of the lake, Jared’s arm had started to ache from the effort, but he’d held it in place, stubbornly refusing to let a little soreness and residual illness keep him from ogling the most perfect body he’d ever seen.

His dogs hadn’t been too happy at his distraction as it had kept them from continuing their game of fetch, but they’d remained blessedly quiet in their funk, only huffing out disappointed doggy breaths as they crashed down at their master’s feet.

When the man finally emerged from the lake, Jared had almost cussed out loud. A stray bush near the shoreline prevented Jared from getting the full frontal view, only giving a tantalizing glimpse of strongly muscled chest and a flash of hairy leg.

Oh, and a profile shot of the most gorgeous face that Jared had ever laid eyes on, but he still felt cheated out of the cock shot.

The nymph had begun to cover up his beautiful, almost translucent skin when Jared finally realized that maybe his brain hadn’t been firing on all cylinders because he was really, really certain that no self respecting nymph would ever wear something so hideous as a white polo shirt with a tan sweater vest on top. With khaki pants. And white socks. And, dear God, brown loafers.

The glasses Jared could give him a pass on. They were cute and perched perfectly on the guy’s stupidly classically formed nose. They floated more than rested, the nose pads kissing Mr. Gorgeous’s skin the way that Jared’s lips wanted to.

So apparently he had a thing for the world’s hottest accountant - possible librarian - and somehow that thought was far more terrifying than that of crushing on an unattainable nymph.

Why?

Because a nymph might be charmed by the bumbling human that discovered his super secret existence in a world that disbelieved. Jared could be special and adorable in his bumbling awkwardness because, hey, all humans had to be that way to the eyes of such a creature.

Normal every day hot guy? Jared had no shot. None. Not at all. He was the epic failure of the dating world. He was so uncoordinated his dogs laughed at him sometimes. He was tall, sure, and his momma said he had been gifted with the prettiest eyes in the whole world. And his daddy had embarrassingly once told him that his stupid, ugly mole was a fairy kiss.

Daddy was a writer by trade. Between him and Jared’s momma they may have filled their children’s heads with absolute fanciful nonsense and unsubstantiated beliefs in the goodness of mankind. It was why, after getting his head shaved and being hogtied up in the Janitor’s closet at school by a rather un-open minded group of regular, non-jock students, Jared turned his artistic talents into architectural engineering and design instead of acting and painting.

Nobody laughed at a guy drawing awesome blueprints because they were blue (the color of a man), and they needed construction workers and loud machinery to bring into existence. It was manly art.

And so, yeah, on occasion Jared has used pink construction paper from the local arts store to draw things on before making the actual draft. So what? Gazebos and tiered garden ponds just don’t have the same inspiration to them if you base them in boring blue or basic white.

Just to be clear, Jared knows that his talents are “wasted” on designing things that could just as easily be covered by a landscaper. He doesn’t care, and his customer base adores his ingenuity.

They’re rich snobs who are making him a rich, shy boy because they love his work and the bragging rights that come with it.

All of which does him absolutely no good in the love department. People love his work. They don’t love him.

It’s unfair because Jared is a loveable guy. He thinks he’s affectionate and properly adoring to his lovers, and he’s never met a set of parents who disliked him.

But each of his serious relationships have called him needy and clingy and eventually his desire to stay at home and cuddle versus going out and partying just… well there is apparently something wired wrong in him because he’s so shy, but he’s notoriously grabby in public. His last girlfriend asked him if he had some sort of PDA disease that made him compulsively touch her.

His last boyfriend wasn’t so nice.

It started off with a critique on Jared’s behavior and ended with an admission of how he was only dating Jared for his enormous cock, but it wasn’t worth the bruising from his lack of coordination in bed. Also, Jared’s large, rather fugly nose was putting his eye in constant danger of being poked out with all those stupid, pointless kisses Jared insisted on giving out.

Jared’s momma had made it through all of her cookie recipes before he’d felt better about that break-up, and Jared’s brother had wanted to go beat the guy to a pulp. But that was Jeff for you; he’d gotten all the good genes and all the self confidence. He never understood that some ugly ducklings don’t grow up to be swans, and didn’t understand that there were things in Jared that just couldn’t be fixed because Jeff refused to see that his little brother was flawed.

It was sweet of him, but unnecessary. Jared didn’t live in a fairly tale world.

If Jared were to find a way to talk to Mr. Hot Accountant Guy, it would eventually end in disaster. Even omitting the fact that he’d been watching the dude skinny dip like a great, big pervert, there was a one percent chance that a guy so perfect would be both homosexually inclined and willing to go out with Jared.

Jared was mix of giraffe and a cat. All tall and knobby kneed but missing the cute spotting of one and all of the agility of either. Instead he has a stupid Cheshire grin and squinty eyes and the mane of a deranged circus pony on his head.

He’s kind of glad he wasn’t born a girl because he’d spend a fortune on makeup trying to hide all his flaws, and he’d never succeed. That and he’s certain that high heels would cause death or permanent paralysis.

He knows all of this. He knows himself. He is completely self actualized.

It’s the fact that he keeps dragging himself out of bed to watch Mr. Gorgeous Accountant Man swim that he can’t explain.

He hasn’t skinny dipped since the first time that Jared spied him. It’s a pity, but it does ease Jared’s conscience just a bit. Somehow being a stalker is just a little less creepy when neither of them are strictly naked.

Jared felt only relief that when he worked up the courage to go back, he found the man at the lake once more. More than half of him had been terrified that he’d never see the guy again. It made no sense unless you believed in love at first sight, and that was just stupid.

Except for the fact that Jared deep down inside totally did believe in it, but he preferred to think of it as an unhealthy fascination instead. Love, as they say in song, hurts.

This --- doesn’t hurt. Not at all. It’s the highlight of Jared’s day. Come rain or shine, as long as Mr. Perfect is out in the water, Jared has a perfect forty-five minutes every day. And it literally is every day. With the exception of the time there was a summer storm, and it was hailing, the guy always swims.

The day that it hailed? Jared was out there in a rain jacket with a first aid kit and two life jackets in case he needed to go in after the man. Apparently Mr. Gorgeous has more brain cells than Jared does, because he wasn’t out in inclement weather like that.

The watching thing, it’s good. It’s not real, but it’s good.

It gets even better when the guy starts to hum and sing and talk to himself when he does the backstroke. It’s like having a one sided conversation, at least when he’s on Jared’s side of the lake.

When he’s on the far side, all that Jared can make out are the rising and the falling tones of his deep voice. It’s only when he’s close by that Jared can make out the actual words.

Most of the time it’s just songs or meaningless to do lists that aren’t all that informative. Sometimes though, when the man is particularly angst, he’ll go on a rant about whatever is bothering him. He’ll repeat irksome conversations and issue back sarcastic and biting replies that Jared is certain weren’t said during the real conversation.

The rants are how Jared learns that the man’s name is Jensen. His boss or irritating coworker or client or whoever must have a habit of calling him by his last name because one of the pseudo conversations is, “Jensen, I need this fixed by tomorrow. Don’t screw it up this time!” followed by a, “Yes, sir. Maybe next time you shouldn’t let your little pet fuck it up so I have to fix it, sir.”

Jensen, if the choppiness of his stroke is anything to go by, is pretty pissed off at the situation. Jared feels bad because Jensen is obviously extremely dedicated. He never misses a morning swim unless it is very bad weather.

Jensen deserves recognition. He deserves good things. He isn’t a leper like Jared who doesn’t have a choice but to be good at what he does. Jensen is blessed with the kind of looks that would allow him to be an absolute slacking asshole and people would still forgive him because he’s so damn pretty.

Jared may be a bit biased about Jensen. He can accept that - doesn’t mean that he doesn’t want to make Jensen’s life better.

****************

In retrospect, the rose might have been a bad idea.

Jared had spent so much time plotting out exactly when he could drop it off without getting noticed (when Jensen was doing a crawl on the far end of the lake) that he never stopped to consider that having a gift suddenly show up out of nowhere might be disturbing.

Especially a red rose. Jared totally should have gone with a yellow rose or maybe gladiolus or a chrysanthemum…

Which is, of course, totally not the point because he’s freaked Jensen out, and Jensen hasn’t come back for a few days, and he is never going to come back because Jared can’t even have a fake, one sided relationship with somebody without fucking it up.

It’s a good thing that Jared didn’t even have the guts to stick around after giving the gift. He’s not sure he could have handled the confusion on Jensen’s face that had no doubt morphed into fear and then anger. Jensen had probably yelled and stormed around screaming at his stalker to show himself.

Worse, maybe he had shaken with fear and not even bothered to get dressed. Maybe he had fled the area, stumbling away from the tiny, sandy beach, cutting his feet on the stones and branches that lurked under the forest’s carpet of grass and wildflowers.

Maybe his pale skin had gone a shade of sickly white. Maybe he had gotten sick and thrown up once he’d gotten somewhere safe.

The mere thought of it made Jared ill. The actuality of it would’ve put him in a funk that his mother would have to break out her pie recipes to fix, and what could Jared even tell her? That he’d fallen in love with a man that he’d been spying on? He couldn’t do that to his mother. He wouldn’t disappoint her like that.

That didn’t mean that he quit coming back to the lake day after day, because he did. He still came faithfully and sat and watched the reflective surface of the water. He sat and cried for himself that the only ripples in the water were caused by the wind or the occasional water fowl.

He started bringing his dogs with him again, he had stopped after that first time, not wanting them to alert Jensen to his presence, but even their boisterous attitude at extra play time with their master could help him get over the enormity of his reckless moment of stupidity.

Then, on a rainy day that he didn’t bring the dogs because they hated rain, Jensen showed up again.

He was standing on the beach, shifting his weight from foot to foot, glancing nervously at the tree line. Jared thought that he might be biting his lip. He couldn’t tell for sure because Jensen was too far away, but the overall picture looked like he might be.

“Look,” Jensen’s deep voice carried out over the water, but distance and the patter of rain muted it so that Jared had to strain to hear. “I’m not saying… Fuck, you… It’s a little weird, okay? I mean, you just don’t watch a guy. It’s not normal.”

Jared closed his eyes and willed himself not to move, not to run away. Jensen had a right to be listened to; he deserved a chance have his say.

“But I’m guessing you’ve been at this a while now, and I’ve never noticed you following me to my car. Never noticed you at all really.”

Jared tried not to be hurt at that because not getting noticed had been the point, and he didn’t deserve Jensen’s notice.

“And I really like this lake, and I’ve walked around the whole damn thing, and I can’t figure out where you are. So here’s the deal – you don’t try to drag me off and rape and kill me, and I don’t try to entrap you by bringing my friends with me one morning. Because I like this lake, and I’m allergic to chlorine, and if I’m going to get watched, I’d rather it not be by a whole shit ton of people at a public beach.”

Jared isn’t sure how to take that, but it sounds like a truce of some sorts, so he’s just going to be grateful about it.

Jensen mumbles a, “Great, Ackles, just great. Stalker person probably left a long time ago, and you’re talking to yourself,” before he strips down to a pair of much baggier than normal trunks and swims about half of his normal routine.

It’s more than Jared could honestly have hoped for, and he feels a surge of some sort of pride and awe at Jensen’s courage. Then again, his parents named him ‘Ackles’. That had to have been character building. No wonder his boss calls him by his last name.

Because Jensen was the bigger man and actually declared the truce, Jared figures that he deserves some sort of acknowledgment of that fact. Not that he is ever going to talk to Jensen directly. If Jensen ever does see Jared’s face, it’s going to be that fluke of fate thing where they run into each other in the dairy section of the grocery store.

This will happen precisely never because Jared’s doctor has been very strict about limiting his lactose consumption, but the point still stands that Jared isn’t going to subject himself to that.

What Jared does do is go home and spend two hours constructing and then sewing, by hand, a little white flag. He sacrifices one of his flour sack kitchen towels to do it because he has a hard time getting dress shirts in the right size, and the only other white material he owns is in his underwear drawer and that would just send the wrong message. Or rather, a more honest one, but he learned his lesson with the rose.

He can’t wait to give his gift, so he takes a flashlight and his dogs and trudges out in the middle of the night to stick the flag into the beach right next to the rock that Jensen always puts his neatly folded clothes on.

Jensen laughs like a maniac when he finds it.

Jared thinks it’s more hysteria than true amusement, but Jensen isn’t running, and Jared hasn’t heard any other footsteps indicating that Jensen brought anybody else with him, so he counts it as an overall win.

“Dude, really. I don’t think there was a war being declared.” Jensen finally huffs out when he finished laughing. “Unless you were trying to like, reference The Wars of the Roses, in which case you need to be a little less subtle, and like, include a white rose. And if you were trying to infer that I’m the white rose because I’m pale, that’s just not nice.”

Jared blinks at that because, wow, Jensen’s brain goes really weird places. It’s almost as scary as Jared’s own thoughts.

Jensen swims his usual routine that day, but his workout is hampered by his sudden glances around him. He’s trying to spot Jared, and it is messing with his form. But Jared is used to ducking out of the way. He knows where to sit so that Jensen won’t be able to see him.

He’s an engineer, and he’s been working the angles since he started the whole thing.

Still, he feels kind of bad about it, because he isn’t being fair. He doesn’t even refer to Jensen as Ackles in his head because he likes the guy’s last name better, and he just can’t justify being that selfish. It shouldn’t be all about what Jared likes. He wants Jensen to be happy too.

After two days, he settles on buying a teddy bear. It is lime green colored with a blue bowtie, but it was the only one in the toy store that didn’t morph into something sinister once Jared squinted at it for the fifth time. He wants to make Jensen see him as friendly and supportive, but not like, demanding and weirdly affectionate.

Harley slobbers all over one ear, and Jared spends the night sewing the right leg back on from where it ripped off when Sadie tried to assist him in retrieving it from the larger dog.

Jensen looks really confused by it when he finds it. Jared can’t blame him. It’s a failure, and probably is giving the impression that Jared is some sort of ear cannibal that wants to break Jensen’s leg and sew it back on so that he can’t hobble away from his evil…

“Dude, tell me that this wasn’t like this when you bought it. Because they really screwed you over if it was.” Jensen finally calls out.

Jared’s sigh of relief is almost audible.

**************

He brings Jensen a box of his momma’s cookies the next day. It goes against his personal rules. He’s sworn to himself after the rose fiasco that he wasn’t going to give Jensen anything weird, and food is weird. It’s like, like Jared could totally poison or drug food, and there is a reason that you don’t accept ingestible substances from strangers.

It’s just… he felt really bad about the bear, but he didn’t have time to go out for another gift. He works from home, yeah, but that doesn’t mean that he can always set his own hours, and he got swamped with a couple of additional commissions that were more detailed than the original scope of work that he’d been given.

He can’t let his career go down the tubes, and personal commissions are the only thing keeping him in today’s hot commodity column instead of the yesterday’s has been column. He doesn’t want to end up a company owned architect that spends his time designing sunroofs for the west side food court in the newest mall.

By the time that he’s finished up on the promised preliminary sketches, he’s got five minutes to make it to the lake and no gift to give. He’s despondent until he spies the package that had come in the previous day’s mail. He hadn’t opened it at the time because he knew what was inside, and he hadn’t wanted to deal with the crumbs getting in the way of his pencil while he worked.

He doesn’t let people have his mother’s cookies. They’re sacred. As corny as it sounds, she makes each batch with love, and she makes sure that they are all full of everything that Jared enjoys and nothing he’s allergic to, and they’re made especially for him.

But, fuck it all, it’s Jensen. And Jensen’s smile, even from Jared’s far away vantage point, well it’s priceless.

So he rips into the packaging and pulls out the cookie tin, leaving the cardboard shipping box to hit the floor while he runs to the lake. He knows that the dogs are going to have little bits of box and packing tape strewn all over the house when he gets back. It’s okay. It’s worth it.

He’s gulping in deep breaths of air when he finally crashes down on his stone, but he gets to see Jensen slide the bow off the tin and peek inside. He frowns for a moment then slides the lid back on. It’s kind of disappointing, all things considered. Jensen has no idea how much of a sacrifice Jared just made for him.

Still Jensen must have been raised right because he turns and smiles, in the completely wrong direction, and says, “Thanks, but cookies are kind of counterproductive to the whole swimming routine thing, yeah?”

The bitch of it all is that he takes the cookies with him when he leaves. He probably thinks it is the polite thing to do, but it ticks Jared off a little anyway. Really – those were his cookies! His momma’s cookies! Rejecting them is like… It’s insulting is what it is. Those were made by his momma! For him! And he gave them to stupid Ackles Jensen and got a quip in return?

Fucking jerk. No wonder his boss hasn’t promoted him yet.

It’s like they’re having their first fight, only they aren’t because they’re not in a relationship at all.

Jared thinks about skipping the next day just to spite Jensen. But there isn’t a way for Jensen to know that he’s getting stood up, and Jared’s internal clock gets him up on time anyway.

He stomps to his spot, carrying his iPod and a thermos of coffee with him, and meanly wonders if Jensen’s classmates called him ‘Ack’ for short. He totally intends to treat Jensen’s swimming as eye candy to his enjoyment of his music and coffee time. Just background Jensen instead of the main show.

He almost misses Jensen’s arrival, so he hasn’t had time to shove his ear buds in and crank the volume on his player with the only intent being to ignore Jensen. Turning it on ahead of time might’ve given the impression that he was just doing it for enjoyment instead of for the purpose of giving Jensen a hypothetical cold shoulder.

“So, Jared,” Jensen sounds nervous which is good because Jared is fairly certain that his own stomach just twisted itself in five knots at the sound of his own name. It’s nice that he has some sort of company in that department.

“Uh, Momma wants you to call her.” Jensen coughs once before continuing, “Apparently you’ve been sounding down lately, and she wants to be sure that you haven’t gotten yourself into, and I’m quoting here, ‘… another bad relationship where some Jackwagon treats you like crap.’ She says that she loves you, and that you’ll always be her special boy, and you’ve got a lot to offer anybody.”

Jensen shifts uncomfortably before sitting down on his rock instead of dropping his towel on it.

“I’m going out on a limb here and guessing that you didn’t open that tin before you gave it to me?” Jensen snorted and shook his head, “Why am I even asking? You aren’t going to answer. Look, Jared, I appreciate the cookies. I do, but you’ve got to be more careful. You don’t know me any more than I know you, and I could’ve really done something horrible to you with that information.”

Jared kind of doubts that. His momma couldn’t have written anything in that note that would’ve given away that much personal information, and Jensen is kind of being a hypocrite about it given that he’s making himself purposely vulnerable day after day. Plus, he seems smart enough to realize that Jared might know his full name and would totally be able to track him down.

Not that Jared would, because, yeah. He can’t. He won’t. Not ever. Jensen’s too beautiful, and if Jared can’t woo him with his momma’s cookies, he sure as hell has no hope with his own cooking.

“Right.” Jensen declares emphatically before standing up again. “Well, I’m glad we had this heart-to-heart. I’m, uh, going to go swim now. Like normal. Okay?”

Jared, of course, doesn’t verbally respond, but like the dork that he is, he nods.

The wind picks up about halfway through Jensen’s swim, and it starts cutting through Jared’s sweatshirt. Jensen’s going to be freezing when he gets out of the lake, and he was only wearing a tee shirt when he arrived.

Jared’s never gone looking for Jensen’s vehicle. He has no idea if it is a car, SUV or a truck. He hasn’t a clue on the make, the model or the color. He’s never wanted to get that sort of information because he knows, just knows that he’d look for it every time that he ran an errand.

He can control his urge to look for Jensen on the face of every passing stranger as he doesn’t actually want Jensen to see him. If he did spot Jensen, there is no way that Jensen wouldn’t spot him back. Jared is many undesirable things, but being unremarkable is not one of them. His size and expressiveness would announce themselves to everybody in the vicinity.

Jensen might not realize why exactly the weird looking giant was blushing and staring at him, but he’d definitely notice that he was. It would be unbearable to see Jensen’s face scream, “Freak!”

But Jensen’s vehicle? That Jared would look for because it would afford that physical barrier that would make it okay to look, make it okay to pine.

So yeah, Jared has purposely avoided looking for Jensen’s vehicle, but he has a guess that it gets parked a fair distance away from the lake.

Firstly, they’re in a middle of a forest. Jared’s place is the closest to it, and he knows that Jensen isn’t parked in his driveway. Secondly, Jensen is always a bit sweaty when he gets to the lake. That has to mean that he walks a distance before getting there.

Once his wet skin is exposed to the wind, Jensen is going to be freezing on his way back. He’s got a towel, but that isn’t going to do much good.

Jared thinks about leaving his hoodie to help Jensen keep warm, but that might be a bit too much. It would be the best thing, but sharing clothes is probably too intimate.

He doesn’t want to leave Jensen with nothing though, especially after Jensen made the effort to talk to him. So he thinks about it and leaves his thermos of coffee. It’s a good, sturdy thermos. The liquid is still hot. It’s something edible again, but after the cookies thing, Jared’s hoping that Jensen isn’t going to think that it’s drugged.

Unlike the last time that he dropped something off during Jensen’s swim, he hurries back to his spot to wait and watch.

Jensen stills when he pulls himself out of the lake. Then he practically runs forward, dashing around, turning in circles, looking for Jared.

Finally he stops his movements and picks up the thermos. He sniffs at the contents. Then he sniffs again.

His first sip isn’t tentative like Jared expected, mostly because it isn’t a sip. It’s a goddamned gulp followed by a moan, and hell, Jensen is still standing in the cold wind, dripping wet in nothing but his swim trunks.

“Oh, God,” Jensen practically whimpers once he finally pulls his lips away.

Jared doesn’t think his coffee is that good. He’s a little suspicious that this is a ruse of some sort. His last girlfriend used to overact like that to compensate for the fact that Jared and his big dick were a fantastic failure at getting her off. He’d fallen for her fake orgasms and had no idea they were phony until she was screaming at him for ruining her chance at a modeling gig by holding forcing her to hold his hand in front of a casting agent that thought she was single.

“Fuck,” Jensen whimpers again, dragging Jared out of the past.

Jared is a little worried. Maybe he did drug the coffee in some sort of subconscious desire to abduct Jensen. Maybe he needs to seek psychological help. Maybe this is too abnormal of behavior.

“Dude, this is the best coffee ever. Fucking Folgers is fucking crap, God.”

Maybe Jensen needs help. Maybe he’s an addict to caffeine, like a serious, needs rehab addict, and Jared just pushed him off the wagon. He’s become a dealer. And evil drug dealer that…

He’s distracted by the sight of Jensen’s frantic gulping. It’s, okay, it’s making him think bad thoughts. Like Jensen is going to finish drinking the coffee, and then try to lick the inside of the canister and licking the thermos leads to thoughts of licking the owner of said thermos.

It’s bad, very bad.

“Oh, dude. You have no idea, really. Thank you so much.” Jensen sounds a little winded and a lot blissed out. It’s kind of scary.

“I, uh, finished it, so… I’m just going to leave it here, okay? I’ve got to run. Uh, kind of cold, and you know, coffee… but thanks.” Jensen mumbles as he struggles into his clothes and runs.

His tone is odd, but Jared gets it right away. He’d be embarrassed too if he just gave some stranger a free coffee porn show.

**********

Jared’s tempted to bring Jensen coffee again, but he’s not sure either of them would live through the experience, so he brings him a little coffee cup figurine instead. He’s ashamed to admit that he spent all night making it instead of actually working.

He is doubly mortified that he used his work tools to do it. Yes, he’s self employed, but he declared those tools and goods on his income tax as being for his business. They’re what he uses when he wants to conceptualize things in three dimensions instead of just paper. It’s the engineering part of him, and he spent all night carving pieces out of wood and welding together tiny pieces of metal to create a steaming coffee mug complete with articulated arms and legs. He sewed a cape out of another kitchen towel, and named the figurine “Captain Joe.”

Jensen thinks it’s hilarious. Jensen spends three minutes flying Captain Joe back and forth making tiny, “Save me Captain Joe!” noises while the wooden superhero swoops in to save smooth stones from small waves lapping at the beach.

What Jensen doesn’t do is say, “Thank you.” Then again, he doesn’t need to.

*************

One day, Jensen shows up and is halfway through disrobing when he realizes that he doesn’t have a towel. He snaps and snarls and stands there looking confused before he finally makes the decision to go for his swim anyway.

He’s grumpy as hell about it though. Jared can tell by the way that he rolls over onto his back right away and starts off with the backstroke. Jensen only backstrokes when he wants he mouth free to complain about things. Today’s rant is about how he’s going to chafe because he didn’t dry off properly and how his stupid pale skin is all delicate. That diatribe segues into a bemoaning of how freckly he gets when he tans, and how stupidly sensitive it is to the algae in other lakes and ponds.

When he starts in on how much he hates his hair and the way it bleaches blonde after too much sun, Jared has to get up and leave. He loves Jensen’s stupid freckles even if he’s only ever spotted a couple of them because he’s never been close enough to pick them out in detail. And he loves all the shades of Jensen’s stupid spiky hair. And even though it’s Jensen talking about himself, Jared can’t stand to hear bad things said about him.

Plus, he doesn’t want Jensen to get a rash or anything because that would keep him from coming back.

It takes no time at all to grab a towel and a bottle of itch soothing lotion from the bathroom. It takes a little bit to get past the dogs who are really excited by his early return home, but he manages to squeak by them and leave Jensen his presents with time to spare.

Jensen is still ranting about life, but Jared can’t make out the words because of where Jensen is. He wonders if Jensen is on a new subject, or if he just repeated his rant once he got halfway through the swim, hoping that Jared could hear it.

Jensen looks delighted when he sees the towel. Jensen looks ecstatic after using it.

Jensen takes his shorts off and dries off down there with Jared’s towel. Even though it’s as perfunctory and normal as ever, that’s Jared’s towel and… okay maybe saving Jensen from swimmer’s itch wasn’t so good of an idea because Jared’s mind is going to places where it is his hand guiding that towel. From there his imagination supplies Jensen spreading out on that towel and Jared’s hands opening him up using the lotion that he brought, stroking over those muscles, playing with Jensen’s…

“You. Are. The. Best.” Jensen declares, jerking Jared out of his fantasy.

Jared feels horrible, because he isn’t the best. He’s a homely loser with a porn star’s dick and no idea how to use it. He’s only good with his hands when they’re drawing, and he’s fantasizing about a guy who is gracious enough to let Jared interrupt his private time.

“Seriously man, thanks a ton.” Jensen waves in almost the right direction before taking off with both the towel and the lotion.

Jared doesn’t come back the next day. He’s in bed feeling guilty.

There is a thunderstorm the day after that, and even if Jared wanted to go, he knows that Jensen isn’t stupid enough to swim in that kind of weather.

The third day after is Sunday, and his parents are hosting the annual Padalecki pre-barbeque season barbeque. Neither Jared nor his siblings have ever understood why it is called that as their father uses his grill all year long.

As far as they can tell, it’s basically an excuse for their parents to try out new recipes on the guinea pigs they like to call their children so that they know what to wow the friends and neighbors with at the annual, Padalecki Barbeque Event, so named by his father’s book editor which proved why George was the editor and not the writer.

Jared picks at his food. It’s a plea for help. He knows it. His mother knows it. His dogs know it. His totally adorable niece and nephew know it.

He’s pretty sure his parent’s nosy neighbors are looking out their windows and clucking, “The middle son isn’t eating, must be something wrong.”

That doesn’t mean that he actually tells his mother what is going on. Basically he is never telling anybody ever, but he does admit to having unrequited feelings for a friend. He assures his momma that it is a new friend that the family has never met. His mother is appropriately concerned and consoling, encouraging Jared to move on, but also encouraging him to keep his friend at the same time.

His momma knows he has problems letting go of friends. He doesn’t like to do it. He isn’t that kind of guy.

His momma wants to meet this new friend, and Jared hedges on his response. He doesn’t want to deny her request, but for her to meet Jensen, he’d have to actually meet Jensen first. That isn’t happening.

It’s surprisingly after their conversation about Jensen that Jared gets himself into trouble. His mother is packing up a container of cookies for him when she asks if he’d like more of the molasses chocolate chip ones. He doesn’t know how to answer that because he’s never had them, and he tells her so.

And right about then he realizes he’s made a mistake because she wouldn’t have asked if he wanted more if she wasn’t certain he’d already tasted them - which means that there were some in the tin that he gave to Jensen.

Jared lies like a rug about some crying neighbor kid and his neighborhood baseball team losing their game, and consoling them with cookies. His momma doesn’t believe him, mostly because Jared is a terrible liar, and he doesn’t have his father’s ability to create fiction.

That and he has been insanely protective of any cookies in his possession since he was old enough to horde. He doesn’t share. It’s another of his unattractive qualities, but it at least doesn’t have anything to do with his looks or overly demonstrative behavior.

She lets him slide on it though. Probably not because she thinks he gave the cookies away, or God forbid didn’t eat them at all and let them get stale, but because she figures he gorged himself on them and doesn’t have a clear memory of what they tasted like.

**************

“So, I got the hint about keeping the towel.” Jensen announces on the day that Jared decides he can’t keep away any longer.

“And I remain adamant that breaking up a bathroom set is a crime. I priced this towel out, man. And the lotion. And I’ve got to say that you are being overly generous here. Seriously.”

Jensen is shaking Jared’s towel at a large grouping of overly tall, wild rose bushes. Jared thinks that maybe Jensen thinks that Jared is a midget because only a child could hide behind those.

Truth is he would very much like his towel back because it’s nice and comfy, and Jensen’s pricing research is accurate. Then again, he has apparently lost his chance at reclaiming one of his favorite towels because of his refusal to return. He’ll just chalk it up as penance for his lust.

Besides, it isn’t like he doesn’t want Jensen to have nice towels.

“So I’m going to leave some money here, okay? And I want to see it gone tomorrow. I’m giving you half of retail, because I figure I’m getting these second hand.” Jensen declares his intentions boldly before slapping a wad of cash down on his holding rock and placing a larger rock down on the cash to keep it from flying away in the wind.

Jared feels insulted. He doesn’t need the money. Even if he did, a gift is a gift.

But yeah, he can’t take Jensen’s money at all. Because, well, if he was going to start charging Jensen for things, he’d start with demanding rent for all the trespassing that he’s been doing on the lake.

Because the forest? It’s technically Jared’s backyard.

Not even his family knows that because he doesn’t want them to think differently of him. He likes being the middle child. He likes that his parents still insist on him coming home for a good meal, and that Jeff teases him about being a starving artist. He likes that when he drives his old truck into town, nobody notices him or pays him special mind.

He’s loaded, has been since he designed that waterfall for a guy’s basement that looks like it’s flowing up the wall. Word about his talent got around after that. Once word also got around about his ability to keep to his secrecy agreements, he had lots of wealthy people calling.

He’s never done anything sketchy, but he understands the need for privacy. Whether clients are worried about real concerns, like strangers knowing where all the entrances and exits are, or not so real ones, like word getting out that you had a room designed around your yorkiepoo’s special doggy needs, Jared keeps his mouth shut to the press.

If he ever got asked to do something that clearly pointed to illegal activity, his first call would be to the cops. It would kill part of his career, but he was raised to do the right thing.

It’s why he can’t keep Jensen’s money. It’s why he shouldn’t have started the whole observation thing in the first place, but he can’t help it.

Still, to pacify Jensen, the money is gone the next day.

He puts it back in a brand new money clip the day after, and he finds out that Jensen can curse a blue streak.

Jensen pitches the clip out in the middle of the lake, and does his morning laps in a furiously paced crawl.

Jared watches him stalk away before stripping out of his own clothes and diving to the bottom of the lake to retrieve the clip. He dries the bills out on the counter over night, before wrapping them in a plastic baggy and putting the clip back around it.

Jensen just stares at the gift when he gets there.

“What the FUCK is WRONG with YOU!” He yells as he pitches his shoes into the lake.

Jared is oddly unhurt by the question, mostly because whatever Ackles Jensen is angry about, he’s thinking it isn’t something that actually is wrong with Jared, like, say, his odd stalking habit and geeky features.

Jensen stares at the ripple that his shoes made, waiting until the last of the inner rings reaches the shore before turning sharply and walking away. He’s going to ruin his socks, but it isn’t like the guy has a choice given that he just dunked his shoes.

Once Jared is certain that Jensen isn’t coming back, he dives into the water and retrieves the shoes. If Jensen keeps this up, Jared is going to have a new workout routine of his own. It would be inconvenient because Jared prefers running on his treadmill and lifting weights in his fancy home gym.

Swimming is recreational to him, pulling expensive litter out of his lake isn’t.

Still, it’s Jensen, and Jensen is clearly upset. Jared has a feeling that Jensen attempted to tell him something during his self-imposed Jensen hiatus, but there isn’t a way to ask except for actually writing a note, and he doesn’t want to open that can of worms because Jensen might write back. And then Jensen would expect actual answers, and then Jensen would be hurt when he didn’t get them and…

So he takes Jensen’s shoes to a guy that one of his clients highly recommends. Louis, who inexplicably speaks seven languages and has a degree in mathematics but runs a shoe repair place, looks like he wants to set fire to Jensen’s shoes. He tries to sell Jared a pair of Italian leather ones in their stead.

While Jared would dearly love to give Jensen something so nice, he has the feeling that he would get a scowl instead of his beloved smile. So while he agrees with Louis’s disgust, he pays to have the loafers fixed anyway.

Jared does buy a pair of the Italian loafers for himself though. They aren’t his cowboy boots, but they’ll be nice for when he has to visit some of his more snooty clients’ homes.

Louis tells him that it’ll take a while to get the suppleness back into the leather after the dunking the shoes had. The way that he says ‘leather’ makes Jared think that Louis would rather say ‘plastic’ or perhaps ‘shit,’ but Louis is every bit the professional that Jared is, so he doesn’t actually voice his opinion out loud.

There isn’t a point in incurring Jensen’s wrath more than once by trying to return the money clip and the loafers on separate occasions, so Jared just leaves a cup of coffee on Jensen’s rock instead. It’s a peace offering. The cup is a chipped ceramic one. Jared got it at a garage sale when he was in college, and he needed help staying up late to complete his double major. The mug is old and faded and so is the chip.

Jared hasn’t ever been able to part with it. The cup was his friend while his roommate went out and partied. It held his ice cream when his first college girlfriend dumped him simply because he was bisexual and when he told her so in interest of honesty in their relationship, she freaked out and told him how evil he was for lusting after other men.

He’d been hurt, but not hurt enough to ignore his dad’s rule about never eating ice cream straight out of the carton. He’d sat on his dorm room bed, scooping giant gobs of vanilla into his cup only to eat it out again and repeat the process.

It wasn’t until his first boyfriend dumped him that he finally graduated to buying pint containers so that he could finish them in one go and not feel guilty about not using a cup or bowl.

The point is that the cup is old and worn and not expensive at all. He wants to let Jensen know that he isn’t about money or trying to buy Jensen’s love with expensive gifts or whatever it is that Jensen is mad at him about. Jared knows he can’t buy Jensen’s love. Swans don’t mate with egrets, not even when the egrets own the pond.

He really hopes that Jensen doesn’t pitch the cup out in the lake. He’s going to be pissed if it breaks, and it wasn’t his own clumsiness that did it.

When Jensen finally arrives, he’s tromping and sounds like a herd of elephants. He’s got a pair of boots on that don’t go with his khaki pants at all, but oddly enough match the man more.

His face is scowling, and if Jared had gone into drawing art instead of structures, he’d be tempted to draw Jensen with a little thunder cloud over his head.

As it is, he just enjoys the way that Jensen’s ire deflates when he realizes there is just a cup of coffee waiting for him. He picks it up with both hands. They wrap around the mug, hiding it from view while he first sniffs and then sips at the liquid inside.

It takes forever for him to finish, but when he’s done, he has the tiniest smile on his face.

“You’re exploiting my weaknesses.” He accuses Jared mildly. He’s staring at a rock in the middle of the lake today. That one makes no sense to Jared at all, but he supposes that Jensen is just randomly picking directions these days hoping to find where Jared is hiding.

“Just so you know; you are not forgiven. That coffee was cold, man.” Jensen declares as he starts to strip out of his clothes.

He is about to wade into the lake when he pauses, “I might forgive you more if there’s another cup waiting when I get back out.”

Jared isn’t a proud man. He almost breaks his neck hurrying back to his house to brew a fresh cup, put it in a thermos and have it waiting for Jensen when he’s done.

Jensen’s smile is worth it. Jared thinks that his smile might always be worth it.

***********

Jensen is not smiling when his shoes, the money clip, the money and a pound of coffee are waiting for him the next day.

“YOU STUBBORN SON OF A BITCH!” He yells, but he doesn’t throw anything into the lake this time.

“NO, WAIT! YOUR MOTHER DOESN’T DESERVE THAT BECAUSE SHE STILL FUCKING BAKES YOU FUCKING AWESOME COOKIES! OBVIOUSLY YOU’RE THE SPAWN OF SOME RAT BASTARD WHO JUST, WHO JUST… ARGH!” Jensen throws his hands up in the air and stalks away.

He makes it ten steps before coming back and snatching his loafers. “I’m only taking these because my boss didn’t like the boots yesterday, and I don’t have the spare cash for a new pair.”

He makes it fifteen steps before he stomps back and dumps his loafers back on the rock, picking up the money clip and shoving it inside of them. “I’m just calling a truce. Not because you deserve it, you prick, but because I can’t stand this anymore, and I need new socks. I’m not taking the coffee though. You want to have coffee with me; you can do it the civilized way and brew it.”

The pound of coffee is gone when Jensen finishes swimming, and a to-go mug is in its place. If Jared sips his own coffee along with him, well that is nobody’s business but his own.

*********

Things proceed at a normal pace for a while. Jensen talks about his boss and the people he works with, and Jared leaves him little things to cheer him up. Every once and a while, Jensen starts to say something, but he stops himself.

Jared knows that it is about whatever it was that Jensen asked or told him about when he wasn’t there, and he also is smart enough that he figures it was about actually meeting Jared. He’s actually grateful he wasn’t there when it happened because then he would have had to have willingly refused the request instead of unknowingly doing it. Same result either way, but at least he was spared the pain of choosing to hurt Jensen.

The routine is nice. It’s companionable. It lulls Jared into a false sense of security.

Jared gets three requests for special projects that all have the same time constraints on them. He’s a people pleaser at heart, and he doesn’t have anything pressing to do but watch Jensen swim in the mornings. He takes all three projects simply because he can.

He likes the challenge, and he doesn’t mind how busy it makes his days.

But there is still only so much work that he can fit into his regular hours, so he takes a sketch pad with him to the lake one day. There isn’t any way that the soft scratches of pencil against paper are going to make it out to Jensen’s ears over the sounds of the woods and water.

He can’t do his scale drawings or check the structural integrity without his tools about him, but he needs to get some preliminary design ideas out to a client, and that means conceptualizing first.

Jared keeps his designs fresh by ignoring the math at first and just drawing what comes to mind.

He knows that math and design aren’t separate from each other, and he knows that design springing from sound mathematical logic can be beautiful. Doing things his way isn’t about disproving another person’s genius.

It is about finding that fanciful place inside himself that begs for expression.

He’s drawing on yellow construction paper today instead of a sketch pad. The papers rustle in the wind, but the noise and movement only inspires him more. The soft slap of Jensen’s arms as they propel him through the water is comforting in its familiarity.

He’s not watching Jensen much. He can’t and hope to get any work done, but he notices the instant that Jensen’s swimming sounds stop. There isn’t any more rhythmic splashing going on.

For one terrifying moment, Jared thinks that Jensen drowned. They always say that the in peril swimmer is silent when they go under. They can’t call for help because, hello, they’re drowning. He knows that he had just heard Jensen nearby. He hadn’t risked his normal quick peek to see if he could finally see the color of the man’s eyes, but he’d been watching so long now that he could gauge how close Jensen was just from the noises he made.

“Huh,” Jensen’s voice both calmed and scared Jared. He was obviously alive, but he was far closer than Jared had estimated.

“You know, this is pretty good, Jared. Didn’t know you were an artist. Guess I should’ve gotten that from Captain Joe, shouldn’t I?”

Jared’s eyes widen, and he glances down at his stack of sketches. Sure enough, one of them is missing. He hasn’t signed any of them, so Jensen doesn’t know his last name. But Jensen has his drawing, and Jensen isn’t stupid. There is wind, but it isn’t fast or strong enough to carry a piece of paper clear across the lake which means…

“I’ve been looking in the wrong damn direction, haven’t I?”

Jared, the not scared and sarcastic side of Jared, wants to point out that Jensen’s been randomly talking in all sorts of wrong directions. The sarcastic side of Jared would very much like to point that out to Jensen as soon as possible so that there could be witty banter that would lead to sex.

Jared’s sarcastic side always pops up at the worst possible times. Mostly because he’s a lover not a fighter, and sarcasm is basically the fight side of his fight or flight response.

The only saving grace is that Jared’s vantage point is right on top of a rocky cliff. Part of it had given way at some point and slid down into the lake. What is there isn’t insurmountable if you’re determined, but it’s sharp, and Jensen has self preservation instincts. Jared knows that Jensen is going to swim to a point where he can climb out without injuring his feet.

It’ll take a while. Far longer than it will take Jared to pack up his stuff and leave.

“I’m going to go get my shoes. I know that there’s a closer point to get out, but it won’t matter, will it? You’re going to be gone by the time I walk back here.”

Jared doesn’t respond, but the rustling of pages from a new gust of wind must let Jensen know that he’s still there.

“Yeah, I figured so. One thing I can always count on you about is that you’ll always be gone.” Jensen sounds sad, but not disappointed as he begins to swim again.

He doesn’t move away quickly, his stroke has changed. He’s using a modified side stroke from the sounds of it. It isn’t his preferred method. He rarely uses it because the purpose of his swimming is to exercise, and it is an energy conserving stroke.

Jared has only seen him use it once, and that was the day that he was complaining about being sore from a charitable basketball game he’d played in. Jensen had talked about how his older brother had taught the stroke to him and not some coach or paid instructor. He’d said that they’d spent hours taking turns playing the dead body in the pond that the fearless retrieval expert had to bring to shore.

The stroke allowed you to grab a hold of another person and swim with one arm if you needed to do that.

Jensen wasn’t dragging a person, but Jared would bet money that holding onto a piece of wet paper while doing a butterfly stroke would ruin the paper.

Tears welled up in his eyes at the thought because Jared wasn’t his drawings. He wasn’t the stable pretty that Jensen could love. He was going to be a disappointment if he stayed, and he was going to be one if he left. At least leaving was expected. He wouldn’t have to see Jensen’s eyes, whatever color they were, cloud over in disappointment at Jared’s gawky appearance.

And even if his unusual looks for some unknown reason appealed to Jensen, his neediness would drive him away soon enough.

And damn, Jensen knew him well even if they’d never spoken, because Jared packed his things and left.

*******************

Sulking was fantastic for Jared’s productivity. Two of his clients praised his more somber work, loving how edgy it was from his previous stylings. The third one looked skeptical at first, but then realized she could do a whole gothic look with it if she only moved her Victorian era furniture into the room instead of her Pop Art collection.

He earned a tip on top of his usual commission, and the construction firms that he recommended for the jobs took him out to celebrate their continued success in taking money from overly rich people. Jared got drunk and then sick with a hangover for two days.

Then he ran into Jensen in a restaurant. Not actually into him, though that was certainly more likely than any normal greeting, but he saw him.

It was lunch time, and Jensen was at a table with a group of people who were also in business casual. It was like a solid mass of neutral color with a thread of blue going through it. Jared wanted to sketch out a retaining wall design based off of it. He could call it “Accountants Holding Back the Earth.”

Jensen was laughing about something, and he was smiling. This close, Jared could see the little wrinkles that formed at the corners of his eyes. The shadows from the dim lighting that the restaurant had made it hard to defined their shade no matter how Jared tried to turn to adjust his viewing angle.

Jared must’ve been staring because the very attractive woman next to Jensen suddenly stilled and looked over. She smiled and winked in his direction and waved a little.

Jared blushed and ducked his head in response because there was no way that he was going to go unnoticed, but he couldn’t stand seeing Jensen look at him.

Sure enough the soft titter of feminine laughter filtered his way along with the words: adorable, shy and cute. A man’s voice, not Jensen’s, told them to cut it out before they killed the “poor kid” with embarrassment.

It wasn’t the worst thing in the world, not by far. In another place and time, Jared would consider it a pretty successful social interaction. Adorable was a pretty good word to get called by a hot woman.

“Hey.”

Jared forced his eyes up and, oh God no, it was the hot lady.

“I didn’t mean to, you know.” She gestured over at her table where presumably everybody was studiously not looking at them. Jared wouldn’t know for sure. He was too busy not looking in Jensen’s direction.

“It’s okay.” Jared even dug up a tiny smile for her.

“I’m just terribly obvious when I… My friends make fun of me for it. They swear that I forget half my brain sometimes, and it’s only because I’m the boss’s favorite that I’m still employed.”

Jared took a sip of water quickly to cover. He was sure on Jensen’s side, that wasn’t so much a joke as it was a fervent belief.

“So, I was just wondering,” she trailed off again purposely leaving the door open for him to work his mojo.

Jared shifted uncomfortably. He didn’t want to make a scene, but he didn’t want to go on a date with her either - not if Jensen didn’t really like her.

“Look, I’m going to be honest with you. I’m flattered. You’re really, really attractive, but I’m gay.”

It was a lie, but she didn’t need to know that he played for both teams.

“Oh. I’m sorry, I thought you were looking, uh,” she flushed a dull red.

“I was. I just… was looking a little to your left?”

She turned and looked right at Jensen before turning back. “You want me to ask him for you? Because he hasn’t gotten laid in forever, and he’s cranky as a bear right now. I’m pretty sure he bats for both teams, so if you’re okay with him having had pussy…”

Jared was going to hyperventilate if she kept going. He wasn’t even sure she was breathing with how fast she was talking, but he was the one that wasn’t getting air.

“NO! I mean, uh, no. Thank you, I just had a bad breakup, and I’m pretty much about the safe, distance ogling right now.”

“Oh, that’s too bad. You sure you don’t want his number?”

Her voice was full of actual sympathy. Like she honestly thought giving out her coworker’s number to a stranger was a good idea. Did Jensen’s workplace actually coach their people to perform unsafe acts?

“I’m good, thanks. Maybe in a few months I’ll be ready, but I’m working on the healing process.”

She smiled at him. “Good, that’s good. I’m glad you’re so level headed about this. I hope you do well.”

As she walked away, Jared thanked his lucky stars he was self employed. He didn’t think he could handle coworkers like that.

***********

“So I pretty much hate you right now, you know?” Jensen’s voice was sort of tinny coming through the speakers of Jared’s sound system.

Harley had gotten off his lead that morning and had come back with a CD case in his mouth. It was labeled “Jared” and had a date on it in neat, precise script.

Once noon had come and gone, Jared had worked up the courage to walk out to the lake and found a stack of discs sitting on Jensen’s rock.

He’d taken them, then walked back and left a stack of blank ones and some cases because it looked like Jensen was leaving them daily, and their price could add up after a while.

There was also the fact that Jared might be a little pathetic about wanting to hear Jensen’s voice.

“I mean, I don’t even know what to jerk off to at night. Are you a brunette? Blonde? Short? Tall? Fat? Indian? Mexican? I don’t even know what you sound like. I basically know that you like me, like a lot and you make practically orgasmic coffee.”

It was one of the worst declarations of affection that Jared had ever heard, and he’d been subjected to some really bad ones.

That didn’t stop him from listening to the rest of the discs over and over again or going back the next afternoon to see if there was anything new.

There wasn’t a new disc, but the blank ones he’d left were gone.

The day after that there was a new CD and a giant container that opened up to reveal another container. Jared just took the whole thing because he wasn’t going to play that particular game in the middle of the woods. Plus, Sadie kept trying to get her nose in the way, so there were good odds that there was something edible inside.

He slapped the new disc in the player as soon as he got home and cranked the volume so that he could hear it in the kitchen while he fought his way into his other present.

“Okay, so you have no idea what I went through to get you that. For your health you better have picked it up and not done another runner where you leave me alone for days on end. I had to sit on the phone with my momma and beg for her to make that. Then I had to go to dinner at my parents’ house and get coddled and cooed over and asked if you were worth it. Do you know how hard it is to lie to your momma, Jared?”

“I mean, what was I supposed to tell her? ‘Hey, Mom, I don’t know! I’ve never laid eyes on the guy! I know his name because he forgot to take his mother’s note out of a tin of cookies he gave me! How did our relationship start? Oh, that’s easy. He was watching me swim everyday and left me a rose and scared me out of my fucking gourd!’”

There’s a soft panting as Jensen collects himself. “See what I mean, Jared? Not easy. So you’d better fucking enjoy those damn muffins.”

There’s a click where Jensen turned off the mic, but another one right afterwards signaling it going back on.

“You’d better have coffee for me tomorrow morning.”

This time the recording doesn’t start up again.

Jared doesn’t have anything left to do but dig his way into the waiting muffins.

After his first bite, he’s got proof that Mrs. Jensen makes great muffins. If Jared’s momma combined her cookies with Mrs. Jensen’s muffins it would be the ultimate desert.

************

Jared, despite his better judgment, hangs around the next morning to see Jensen’s reaction to his response to the coffee demand. He may have been a bit evil leaving the used, but carefully cleaned, containers on the rock in such a way that hides the coffee thermos.

Jensen’s face falls when he sees them, but then perks right back up again as he gets closer.

“You do love me!” He crows as he grabs his waiting coffee. “You don’t know how many daisies I killed over that question.”

Jared’s heart stutters a little at the joke. The truth is that he is kind of in love with Jensen. Jensen just isn’t in love with him. He can’t be. Looks aren’t everything, but Jensen hasn’t had the benefit of internal monologues to help him fall in love with the inner Jared either.

“I’ve, uh, got this Friday off.” Jensen says between sips.

Jared waits for him to continue, but he doesn’t. Jensen is baiting him, but Jared has missed him, and it is Jared fault that they’ve been apart. It isn’t like Jensen doesn’t have a pretty good fix on Jared’s location now, so Jared throws a rock into the water. It doesn’t make a lot of noise, but it does splash loudly enough.

Jensen practically beams at the noise. “Well, that’s progress at least. How about a little vocal action?”

Jared throws another rock in response.

“Fine, fine. So I wanted to say that I have Friday night off, and I’m going to be camping. Out here. Probably on that shady little outcrop you’re hiding on. Just so you know. If you wanted to bring me coffee or surprise me with like trail mix or something, I wouldn’t be adverse to a little company.”

“Jared?”

“You’re not going to do another runner are you?”

Jared doesn’t hear him. He’s already gone.

************

He e-mails out his designs to a client he has always had face to face meetings with. Normally he’d drive into town and meet this particular client for lunch, but it’s at a restaurant across the street from the one that he saw Jensen at. If he can go to lunch there, it is a good bet that he’ll eat at the other place as well.

Jared practically barricades himself in the house for the rest of the week. He’s always got food on hand, so he doesn’t starve, and his satellite dish provides him with all manner of mindless entertainment.

He’s terrified of seeing Jensen, of Jensen seeing him. It’s irrational because Jensen said Friday, and he has no reason to believe that this week is the one that Jensen is going to deviate from pattern and find the tiny footpath that leads to Jared’s house. There is nothing to indicate that it won’t be business as usual Monday through Thursday.

Sadie is the one who does the runner this time. Too much being cooped up, and not enough time getting her regular allotment of exercise make her excited, and she takes off after a squirrel on Friday morning. Harley tries to follow her, but Jared manages to hold him back.

He knows that the panic in his voice won’t bring his baby girl back. He knows that it’ll just cause his kids to get overly excited because their alpha is freaking out, but he can’t help it. He wants her back home and safe, but he doesn’t want to go into those woods.

It doesn’t matter what he wants though, because what he has to do is take care of her. It’s his job, and he isn’t the kind of owner that thinks of himself first.

He takes Harley with him, but makes certain he’s firmly clipped on his lead, and his collar isn’t too loose before they set off.

Jared doesn’t bother heading anywhere but the lake. Sadie loves the water. Sadie loves the lake, and God hates Jared Padalecki. All signs point towards imminent doom.

He expected to run across Jensen, he didn’t expect to see his girl on her back for him making happy puppy noises while he rubs her belly.

All things considered, it’s kind of disgusting. It isn’t in her normal character, and it’s disturbingly enough, exactly what Jared wishes he could do with Jensen.

“Sadie!” Jared snaps her name out harder than he intended, partly because she knows better than to run away even though she’s still on her master’s territory, but mostly because he’s tense and not looking forward to the confrontation with Jensen.

She flips onto her feet and runs over almost immediately, tail tucked between her legs, head held low and submissive. He bends over to clip her leash on, and feels Harley bristle next to him. No growling, Harley is well socialized and not aggressive, but he isn’t used to meeting strangers in their woods.

“Nice dogs.” Jensen comments as he gets closer. “Well, dog.” He amends as his eyes, his green eyes catch Harley’s stance.

“Yeah,” Jared croaks out.

“They shed a lot though. Kept wondering where these little brown furs were coming from until I saw them in the loops on the towel. I’ve got to say, I’m surprised you use towels that expensive on your pets.”

Jared bristles just like Harley at that. “I think that’s my own business.” Nothing is too good for his kids unless it’s bad for them and messes with their dog brains. Dogs don’t care what your dry them off with. They care about sleeping arrangements for the pack and eating hierarchies and submission. They aren’t going to get behavior issues because Jared uses good towels to…

“Wow, so apparently you really love your dogs, huh?” Jensen’s voice interrupts Jared’s inner diatribe.

Jared glares in response. He’s mad at Jensen right now, and he’d like to hold onto that feeling because it is keeping him from being scared and mortified.

“Like you’re one to talk. I’m not the one having an illicit affair with a beverage.”

“Well, I keep trying to have an illicit affair with an artist, but he’s skittish.” Jensen replies, and Jared has flare of roiling, ugly jealousy before he realizes that Jensen is talking about him.

He isn’t sure what he wants to say to that, but he knows it isn’t the, “I’m not an artist!” that comes out.

“You’re not?” Jensen sounds surprised.

“I’m an architect, engineer, designing… I spent a lot of time in school, okay? I draw crap for people then men in hardhats come and make it.” Jared mumbles to Harley more than Jensen.

“Wow, that’s, that’s cool.” Jensen sounds impressed, like genuinely impressed.

Jared lifts his eyes to Jensen’s face, but can’t keep them there because it’s so pretty. Jensen is so masculine and gorgeous, and Jared knows he’s going to stare if he tries for more than a fleeting glance. And then he’s going to want to hug and maybe kiss at those freckles, and then it’ll all go downhill because he’ll want to hold Jensen’s hand in public and tuck him under his arm at family gatherings and kiss him goodnight on the front porch where the neighbors can see.

“I went to school for a Fine Arts degree, would you like your copies single or double sided?” Jensen quips softly.

Jared frowns and brings his eyes back up. “I thought you were an accountant.”

“No, Jared, I work for an accounting firm. I’m the office secretary. I mop up after them on their presentations, and I proof read their reports. My rent went up this summer and my old car broke down, so I had to buy a new one. I started coming here because I couldn’t afford a gym membership anymore, and I didn’t want to ruin my knees by running on sidewalks in the morning.”

Jensen takes a breath, closes his eyes, and seems to collect himself before continuing, “I can’t even afford good coffee. I buy whatever is on sale at the grocery store, and they make Folgers at work. And the best part of waking up? It is absolutely not freaking Folgers being in my damn cup. I’ve had two serious relationships both of whom broke my heart because they couldn’t deal with the ‘duality’ of my personality – whatever the fuck that means. On the plus side, I’ve been told that I could make a killing in the adult film industry, so I guess I have a fall back option if my personal and professional lives keep going down the drain.”

“Oh, I uh, wouldn’t.” Jared says stupidly.

“Wouldn’t what?”

Jared really doesn’t want to answer that question, but he doesn’t have much of a choice. “The adult film industry one,” he chokes out.

Jensen’s eyes fly open. “Me either, I mean, dude I was just joking, you know? I’m not, wow, you know a… just because I let you watch me…”

“I know!” Jared blurts out because he knows that watching Jensen all that time was borderline behavior even though most of the time he wasn’t thinking about sex so much as opining about the beauty that is Ackles Jensen. He knows that, but he doesn’t need to hear Jensen’s mouth confirming it.

Jensen is just sort of staring at him now, though, so Jared feels he needs to say something else before the situation become even more awkward.

“I meant that I wouldn’t have a future in that industry if I hypothetically tried.”

That maybe wasn’t the best sentence to alleviate the problem.

Jensen’s eyes flick down to Jared’s crotch before he flushes and looks at the ground. “Okay, well, I didn’t mean to make you feel inferior or anything. It’s actually normal to have, uh, average sized equipment, even when you’re so big.”

Jared manages to rein in his first defensive response declaring the enormity of his dick. He’s proud of himself for that restraint given that he’s not been handling his entire relationship with Jensen all that well.

“Jens… Ackles, look, you need to know that I’m not all that good in the sack. My talents are in less physical areas.”

Jensen looks uncomfortable at the proclamation which is good because Jared feels uncomfortable and the dogs are shifting like they’d like to be elsewhere as well. It’s nice to have unity even if it sucks.

“Did you just tell me that you’re a lousy lay?” Jensen finally asks.

“Yes?”

“Seriously?”

“Yeah?”

“Why?”

“I believe in honesty in relationships?”

“Today is the first time that you have actually, physically spoken to me. In fact, with the exception of the restaurant, this is the first time that I’ve… Wait, that was you at the restaurant the other day.” Jensen’s stupidly wonderful eyes are narrowing in accusation.

“You noticed?”

“The hottest man I have laid eyes on in years starts eyeing Ursula the Wonder Ditz next to me, and I’m not supposed to notice?”

“I wasn’t looking at her.” Jared defends himself.

“Yeah, I get that. You have this thing where you like to look at me. I noticed.”

“Is her name really Ursula?”

“No, I like to call her that because it sounds ugly, like the inside of her head and maybe her black, black man sucking soul.”

Jared chooses not to say that she just seemed hyper and possibly stupid, but not mean. Jensen doesn’t like her, and he wants to score points with Jensen. He thinks he has a few to win back after the bad sex admission.

“So, you’re staying out here tonight?” Jared asks. He knows that was the plan. He figures it still is, but it sounds like a safe topic.

Jensen smiles a little and drops his chin forward a bit so he can look up through his lashes at Jared. It’s unfair. He looks so stupidly huggable like that. Jared has a feeling that Jensen both knows this and is using it to his advantage.

“Well, if we’re going for honesty, I was angling for an invite. I figured you live on one of the houses over there, but I couldn’t figure out which one no matter how many times I drove by.” He ends his monologue by pulling his bottom lip in and biting down on it gently.

Jared knows beyond a shadow of a doubt that Jensen is doing that to make him think with his downstairs brain. Just like the false flattery earlier about being hot, it’s being done to get Jensen what he wants.

He thinks what he wants is Jared. He’s got some sort of image that he’s built up in his mind, and he is going after that.

Jared can’t give him what he desires, but he’s going to give in anyway.

********

“I love your sofa.” Jensen’s purr is practically indecent as he wriggles against the soft leather cushions.

“I thought you only felt that way about coffee.” Jared comments before flopping down right next to the smaller man.

“Mmm,” Jensen agrees amiably. He looks sleepy.

“Hey,” Jared says as he pokes him in the side, “it isn’t that comfy.”

“Better than the ground. I hate camping.” Jensen tells him as he wriggles again. It looks like he’s trying to get his feet up on the couch without Jared noticing. It is ridiculous. Jared is a professional Jensen watcher. Even if he wasn’t, he’d notice Jensen’s feet suddenly disappearing from the floor.

“That nasty ground that you interacted with when you set-up your tent and tested out the best place to put your sleeping bag?” Jared teases him gently, afraid of insulting him too early.

Jensen freezes and his neck flushes. “I may have not exactly been honest with you about that.”

“Je… Ackles?” Jared pitches his voice low and understanding. He’s got a guess about what Jensen is going to admit.

“I may have driven out after work and maybe pitched my tent last night in the hopes that I’d catch you out this morning. Only you didn’t show up at all. Which, I thought you maybe hadn’t been there at all over the week, but I wasn’t sure.”

“Well, if it makes you feel any better, I may have barricaded myself in the house like an insane person trying to avoid you seeing me.”

“That shockingly makes me feel hurt more than anything.” Jensen grumbles as he begins his wiggling again.

Jared feels bad because he should. So he tries to make it up to Jensen by manhandling him so that he’s fully on the sofa and taking up two and a half cushions. Part of his upper body is now resting against Jared’s, and it’s kind of nice.

“Dude!”

“You weren’t being subtle.”

“Yeah, well, it’s rude to ask your host if you can put your feet up on his couch.”

“It’s rude to trespass on a guy’s property too, but you’ve been doing it for weeks now.” Jared points out.

“Don’t own the lake.” Jensen shoots back dismissively.

Jared swallows at that. He still hasn’t mentioned owning the entire surrounding area to anybody. His neighbors don’t even know that he’s the sole owner of the company that their rental payments go to. He likes just being Jared to them, and didn’t want them thinking of him as their landlord.

One of his clients is a business lawyer. They trade services and referrals. Jared got the inside track on designing a mini spa in Idaho from Laurel.

There remains the distinct possibility that Jensen is operating off of infatuation. While that is something different from Jared’s normal relationships, it doesn’t have a good chance of lasting.

It should feel wrong to tell Jensen something that he hasn’t even told his parents or close friends.

“I sort of do,” he admits quietly. If Jensen is asleep, he won’t hear anyway.

“You what?” Jensen asks, his voice fully alert.

“I thought you were sleeping.” Jared says suspiciously.

“I catnap. What about the lake?”

“I own it.”

“Fuck. Really?”

“Yeah.”

“Rich, hot, and smart: I’m so fucking screwed.” Jensen mutters as he crawls off the couch and stumbles into Jared’s kitchen.

“Je… Ackles?” Jared follows him only to find Jensen sitting at his breakfast bar with his head in his hands.

“This was a phenomenally bad idea. You’re so far out of my league it isn’t even funny.” Jensen says to his hands.

Jared assumes he’s talking to his hands, because he can’t fathom that Jensen is talking to Sadie, and she’s the only other option.

“What was a bad idea?”

“The whole getting to know you scheme. God, I’m such an idiot. Should’ve figured out the charity case angle earlier, but I just had to go make it more that it was. I had to go fairytale it up. Make it something it wasn’t. Me and my stupid pipe dreams. I can’t imagine what you think of me right now.”

Jared agrees with that last part, but only because Jensen’s imagination doesn’t seem to be working normally. It’s drawing some really odd conclusions.

“Hey, no,” he says as he slides his hands up on Jensen’s shoulders in what he hopes is construed as a supportive shoulder squeeze and not a surreptitious muscle grope.

“Hey, yes,” Jensen counters. “I'm fucking in over my head, and you’re trying to make me feel better about it with bullshit stories about being bad in bed.”

“I’m just repeating what I’ve been told.”

“By who? Angry groupies?”

Jared laughs at that. “I have clients, not groupies. I don’t do work that gets shown to the public very often. I do special projects for rich people that don’t want their business spread over gossip rags and the internet. A good chunk of my money came from free investment advice from a banker that wanted his pantry to look like a giant vault.”

“So you’re a member of a secret society of rich people. Here I thought the mysterious thing would end once I got you to talk to me.”

“Ackles,” Jared says gently, trying to turn Jensen to look at him.

“Will you quit calling me by my last name? I’m not a damn child. Let me sulk in peace, will you? I don’t want to man up right now. I want you to…”

Jared leans in and kisses him. He doesn’t know what else to do.

Jensen blinks once when the kiss is over. “I want you to kiss me again.”

So Jared complies, because what else can he do?

***********

“You thought my name was Ackles Jensen. In what world does that sound right to you?” Jensen’s tone is lax and teasing. Lax from the beer that Jared plied him with, teasing because he’s finally relaxed.

“My dentist is Dr. Jensen. It’s a last name.”

“So is Ackles. Jensen at least sounds like it could be a first name.”

Jared can concede that point. Besides, he has something else that he’d like to discuss. “What made you come back that day?”

“Which one?”

“After I scared you with the rose.”

“Oh, well, I… I needed a place to go, and I really love that lake. And that stupid rose… it was nice to get a gift for a change. My parents love me, and I have good friends, but they have their own lives. It was nice that somebody was trying to cheer me up.”

“But?”

“But I stole my father’s shotgun and kept it in the trunk of my car, and I had a can of mace wrapped up in my towel.”

Jared squeezes his shoulder at that. He’s proud of Jensen for bringing some protection with him.

“When did you start watching, anyway? Actually, why did you start?” Jensen asks softly.

“I don’t know when exactly. I just remember you were skinny dipping and you were the most beautiful man I’d ever seen.”

Jensen snorts. “The first day then. I hadn’t been sleeping much because of my money crunch. I’d gotten up early, and I just thought I’d pull over and take a quick walk in the woods. I saw the lake. It looked clean, and I had a towel in my car, so I figured that I could test out the water.”

“Doesn’t sound like you.” Jared comments

“What doesn’t sound like me?”

“The impulsively jumping naked into a lake with unknown water properties. Thought your skin was super delicate.” Jared tries to keep his tone light. He doesn’t want to scare Jensen away with his heavy handed boisterousness, not yet. It’ll happen eventually, but he’d like to keep Jensen around as long as possible.

Jensen laughs and shoves at Jared in response. “Fuck you and your perfectly even skin tone. You don’t know what it’s like to…”

“… be the fairest of them all?” Jared interrupts Jensen with a smirk.

“Not Snow White,” Jensen grumbles even as he blushes just a little.

“Yeah the lack of black hair and dwarves would be a problem.” Jared agrees.

“And an evil stepmother, and a pig slaughtering hunter,” Jensen adds.

“And the fair rescuing prince,” Jared tacks on because, well – he started it, he’s gonna end it.

“Nah, I think that I might have that.” Jensen says right before his eyes widen and he turns pale. “Not that I think that you, that I… I didn’t mean that I think that you’re like, going to rescue me from… and I don’t need it anyway, I’m a fully functioning individual, and I’m not…”

It’s kind of amusing because Jensen is rambling, and he’s adorable doing it.

If there is one thing that Jared is sure of, it is that Jensen is not after his money. Gold diggers don’t pitch perfectly good wads of cash into the middle of lakes. They flirt and pout their pretty lips and flutter their pretty lashes over their stupidly pretty eyes in the hopes of getting more.

It is actually a good thing that Jensen isn’t trying that, because Jared would cave. He’s a giver and a soft touch, and his dick has been in a long term relationship with his hand for over a year. Maybe longer. Jensen has awesome lips. Jared would very much like a kiss from them. A few kisses. Going down his body. Wrapping around his cock and just…

“Jared?” Jensen sounds nervous.

“Yeah?” Jared knows his voice is husky. He can’t help it. His blood supply is migrating south at an alarming rate.

“I’m a little concerned here.”

Jared can see that. He can. Jensen’s been stumbling over himself trying to correct some perceived wrong, and Jared’s just been staring at his face thinking dirty thoughts instead of paying attention to apologies that don’t need to be made.

Jared has been called a lot worse than Prince Charming. He doesn’t see the big issue, but Jensen doesn’t know him well enough to know that.

“Kiss me,” Jared commands. Then he realizes that he sounds like a douche so he adds a, “please.”

Jensen complies readily enough. It doesn’t start out hungry, not at all. Jared gets little butterfly kisses on his lips at first – there and gone and back again. It’s teasing and sweet, and Jared’s never had anybody that just wanted to share kissing with him before.

After a minute or so, Jensen must decide that it is going well because his kisses start to linger. The pressure behind them gets more intense, and soon they aren’t so much kissing as making out on Jared’s living room floor.

The dogs are napping on their doggy beds in the corner, and there is a very nice couch that would make things more comfortable, but Jared pushes both thoughts out of his mind. He’s kissing the world’s most beautiful man. He can push aside his discomforts and enjoy the moment as it is.

When Jensen finally pulls back, he’s glassy eyed and disheveled. “So, uh… I think I’m going to hit the hay.”

As far as post making out talk goes, Jared’s heard worse, but he doesn’t think that’s a good thing.

“You’re going to bed?”

Jensen nods fervently. “It’s either that or I’m going to try to take you to bed, and that’s just not a good idea on the first, first…”

“Sleepover?” Jared suggests when he can’t seem to come up with the right word for whatever it is they’re doing.

Jensen glares at him. “Goodnight, Jared.” He says with a pointed glance towards arch that leads to the hallway.

“You’re kicking me out of my own living room?”

“I’m also stealing your sofa from you.”

“I have a guest bedroom, you know.”

Jensen doesn’t respond except to lever himself off the floor and crawl onto Jared’s couch.

Jared sighs and tries not to feel disappointed that Jensen is being honorable. “At least let me get you some sheets and pillows and blankets of something.”

Jensen’s snore is what answers him.

**************

 

“I can’t believe you dragged me out here.” Jared’s aware his voice is whiny. He doesn’t care. The morning air is cold, and Jensen and the dogs are way too active for his taste.

“You’ve been dragging your own ass out of bed to watch me for how long now, and you complain when I get you up today?” Jensen asks, his lips twitching into a smile.

Damn him and his smiles anyway.

“I wasn’t planning on getting in the water with you before.”

“Swimming is good for you. Low impact aerobics, good fresh air, and don’t pretend you don’t like the view.” Jensen’s response is carefree as he begins to strip out of his shirt.

“I love the view. I’d be very happy to observe it from the nice, dry land.”

“Don’t be a baby. I know you swim. I have physical evidence of your diving skills.”

“It’s cold.” Jared points out with distaste.

Jensen rolls his eyes and starts wading out. “Then come out here and let me warm you up.”

It isn’t that Jared doesn’t like swimming. He loves it, and he loves that Jensen suggested they bring the dogs even though they’re just going to muddy up the shallow water and make nuisances of themselves for the first half hour.

What bothers him is that he doesn’t want to be mostly naked in front of Jensen. It’s a thing. He knows it’s a shyness that is left over from when he was that skinny, lanky kid in high school, college and the first two years after college. He knows that he’s got muscles; he just doesn’t want Jensen to not like them.

He isn’t as beautiful as Jensen. He doesn’t compare. On the few occasions that he’s allowed himself to imagine having sex with him, Jared’s always believed that it would be the traditional lights out fumbling where Jensen couldn’t see all of his flaws – all his ugly little moles and the way his legs look like ostrich legs when compared to his body.

“Jared, you’ve already seen me completely naked, and unless you’ve got one hell of a tattoo artist, you don’t have anything that’s going to shock me. Seriously, I dated this chick once that had gay, male aliens fucking on her ass. You know, the little green men kind? They were in a rainbow bubble. She showed it to me on our first date to show how supportive she was of my bisexuality.”

Jared laughs at that, and Jensen grins back, clearly pleased at the sound.

“Come on,” Jensen’s words are accompanied by a little coaxing hand gesture.

Jared huffs and strips out of his clothes as fast as possible before splashing past Jensen to get into deeper water.

“Dude,” Jensen says with a laugh, “are you really that shy?”

Jared is in water up to his chest, he might be tall but the lake is deep. This is a good thing given that he can see the skin that isn’t covered in water is turning an unflattering shade of red as he blushes. The color is mocking him from where it is reflecting in the tiny ripples in the lake’s surface.

He hears Jensen move closer, moving through the water easily, but Jared doesn’t look up. He can’t. The one thing worse than being so self-conscious is getting called out on it.

“You have nothing to be ashamed of,” Jensen tells him as he curls a hand under Jared’s chin and tilts his face towards him.

“I don’t think that my momma would agree about that.”

Jensen scowls a little and pinches Jared’s chin harder. “I’m a consenting adult, Jared. Once I knew you were there… don’t feel bad about it, okay? And don’t feel bad about how you look. You’re gorgeous. I mean it. You’re like, like some sort of woodland creature. A centaur who’s been banished to human form or the love child of a sprite and a human - all ethereal beauty in this tall, muscular package. And you’re giving, and you’re sweet, and you love dogs. My momma always told me that dog lovers are good people.”

“Did she now?” Jared means to lighten the mood with his question, but it comes out more breathy than teasing, and Jensen moves closer in response, the water around them rising in temperature from their body heat.

“Jensen,” Jared whispers right before his head is tugged down, and Jensen kisses him.

Their kisses grow heated more quickly than they had the night before. Their tongues duel, and the water makes splashing noises around them while they move.

Jared is understandably distracted, so he’s a bit surprised when he feels himself being propelled backwards through the water. He flails and pushes Jensen away, managing to dunk himself in the processes.

Coming up for air, sputtering and spitting out lake water is not his idea of sexy.

“Ow,” Jensen beats him to the first word said, and it kind of annoys Jared.

“You shoved me,” he accuses mildly and maybe with just a touch of sulking.

“Well it was more romantic in my head. Especially the part where your gigantic body moved with me and didn’t smack me in the nose.”

“Romantic?” Jared’s going to deny the squeak in his voice if Jensen mentions it.

Jensen doesn’t though. He just moves closer and grabs Jared’s hips. “Would you prefer the term sexy? Because I can call it that. I can definitely call it that.”

“Jensen,” Jared blushes again. This is very new to him. He’s used to dark bedrooms or the occasional dimly lit living room as a place for this kind of activity, not the great outdoors with its bright, early morning sunshine and chirping birds.

“Relax. I know how to swim. I’ll save you.” Jensen whispers against Jared’s collarbone before he kisses it.

It’s different from being kissed on the mouth. The temperature difference of Jensen’s mouth against his damp skin causes goose bumps to break out.

Part of him wants to go hide in his safe spot behind the trees and another part wants to leave, wants to protect both himself and Jensen from whatever insanity they’re about to fall into. But Jared has done enough leaving, and Jensen’s roaming hands don’t feel like they’re about to let him go anywhere.

Jensen pushes down against Jared’s shoulders, and for the first time ever, Jared knows what it’s like to be the shorter person in a relationship as Jensen is actually above him when his mouth reclaims Jared’s. It’s weird for a moment before Jared leans up into the kiss and Jensen wraps a leg around him to keep their position.

Jared can feel Jensen’s swim trunks as they rub against his abdomen, and he can feel the slightly hotter, hard line of Jensen’s sex pressing against him. Timidly, he raises his hands to cup at Jensen’s firm bottom to help maintain their balance. Once the globes are in his hands though, he can’t help but squeeze at them.

“Oh, yeah. That’s it.” Jensen breaks his mouth free from Jared’s to moan out his encouragement. He rolls his hips back into Jared’s hands and then forward against his stomach.

Jared knows better than to get cocky with the encouragement. He’s not good at this, after all, but he does feel a little bit of pride at Jensen’s reaction. It seems genuine.

“Should’ve taken up climbing,” Jensen mumbles against his neck. “Could climb you like a tree every damn day then.”

That… makes no sense, but the dirty tone makes Jared’s cock twitch happily in his watery shorts. His hands have a mind of their own because they somehow go from cupping Jensen’s ass to sliding under his swim trunks to outright grope at it, fingers sliding inside the crack to rub gently at the hole they find.

“Fuck,” Jensen whimpers seconds before he untangles himself from his perch and dislodges Jared’s hands from their task.

For a minute, Jared is confused and worried that he did something wrong. He has the absolute worst talent for sex, and his relationship with Jensen is so far from conventional that it defies logic.

But the other person in the relationship is Jensen, who isn’t exactly your average guy. It is more pleasing than surprising when he proves Jared’s worries unfounded by slipping his hand inside of Jared’s shorts to wrap around his cock.

“Damn,” Jensen says as he runs his hand up and down the shaft. His tone is impressed. Then again, Jared hasn’t ever failed to impress with his size, just what he does with it.

“Yeah,” Jared agrees as he slides his own hand inside Jensen’s shorts. He isn’t, absolutely isn’t going to be distracted by how good Jensen’s hand feels. He’s going to please his, hopefully, new boyfriend to the best of his ability. He’s going to put an effort in for this one.

“God, your hand is huge.” Jensen moans as he pushes into Jared’s grip. “It’s like it’s everywhere at once. Fucking giant.”

Jared kisses his jaw in response to the compliment, but he doesn’t otherwise respond aside from giving Jensen’s dick another squeeze and hastening his strokes.

Jensen returns the favor, and before Jared can reign himself in, he’s groaning and straining into that perfect grip. The water around them is moving and caressing him where Jensen’s body isn’t, and he hasn’t had another person’s hand on his cock in so long that he doesn’t have a prayer when Jensen starts to thumb over his slit at the end of his stroke.

His balls tighten, and his dick hardens just that little bit more before he comes, moaning into Jensen’s mouth which is suddenly just there against his own. The sunlight is reflecting into his eyes and everything is painfully bright before he collapses against Jensen’s shoulder, allowing the lake’s buoyancy to keep him upright.

Jensen pushes into his grip, making little frustrated noises in the back of his throat, and despite his post orgasmic haze, Jared tightens his grip and tries to provide better friction. It’s enough, because soon enough Jensen is coming, and he’s leaning against Jared as much as Jared is leaning against him.

It’s fucking embarrassing is what it is. He just came like a teenager and almost forgot to get Jensen off. The world just had to remind him of why it was that he couldn’t ever keep anybody special, of why he had made himself pine for Jensen over a distance for so long, and why Jared should have done the right thing and kept away when Jensen came to him. He should’ve just…

“That was awesome.” Jensen grunts against Jared’s shoulder.

Jared snorts disbelievingly.

Jensen just hugs him in response. “You have the self worth of a lemming, but I’m going to work on that.”

Jared doesn’t respond. He just stares at the shoreline where Harley and Sadie are playing tug-of-war with Jensen’s athletic pants.

“Jay? I mean it man. It was good. I don’t lie about sex.”

“It was awkward. I was awkward. I hit your nose.” Jared points out.

“Yeah, well, first times aren’t supposed to be perfect. If they were, why would anybody ever have seconds?”

“Masochism?” Jared suggests.

“God, it’s like I’m dating a woman again. You’re good. I’m good. Together we’ll be hot.”

“And if we’re not?” Jared asks, still not looking down into the eyes that he can feel staring at him.

“Then we practice and practice and if we don’t improve, we see a therapist or something. I didn’t come to find you because I thought you’d be a good lay. I came to find you because I wanted to meet the man that gave me homemade cookies and brought me coffee and towels and never asked for anything in return.”

Jared finally looks down into his gaze and finds nothing but sincerity there.

“Jared, I’m not going to lie and say that I wasn’t relieved when I saw how hot you are, but the truth is I would’ve eventually slept with you anyway. Last night? You showed me that you are exactly the kind of person I’d dreamt up in my head that you were.”

“And what kind of person is that?” Jared asks softly, desperately trying to believe in the hope growing in his chest.

“The kind worth getting to know.”


End file.
